


Curiosity Kills (Satisfaction Guaranteed)

by jacksgreysays (jacksgreyson)



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, Inspired By Tumblr, Tobirama is actually a cat: discuss, repost
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-08
Updated: 2017-12-07
Packaged: 2019-02-14 03:58:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12999366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jacksgreyson/pseuds/jacksgreysays
Summary: based on@blackkatmagic’sTobirama is actually a cat: discussin which Tobirama gets turned into a cat and can't change back





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blackkat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackkat/gifts).



> reposted from [Fanfiction, The Miscellaneous Archive](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11365374/chapters/25522713)

**_(zero)_ **

If it had been only five shinobi, he would’ve won by now.

_(If it had been only five shinobi, he wouldn’t have sent his own team away.)_

Maybe, if it had been ten shinobi, he could’ve defeated them.

He’s the Hokage. While he may not ever be as strong as his brother–may the self-sacrificing idiot never rest in peace for leaving him to run the village–he’s still a pretty damn strong shinobi in his own right.

If it had been ten, it might have been fine.

But the Kinkaku Force has come for him in its entirety, and while each individual member (for the most part) is hardly on par with Tobirama, as a whole he is outnumbered and thus outmatched.

But he’s not fighting to win. He’s fighting to stall.

_(Maybe the self-sacrificing thing is a family trait.)_

A fraction of his attention is on his team’s chakra signatures–risky, in a fight so unbalanced as this one, but not a decision he’ll regret–and that part of him is relieved when they slip out of his range, even as he’s busy dodging three different jutsu and sends two counterattacks of his own.

If he can’t sense them, then that means they’re far enough away that the Kinkaku Force can’t catch them.

Which means he can end this fight.

Against twenty, there’s no way he can win. Especially not now, when he’s already spent so much time and chakra stalling instead of truly fighting.

But that doesn’t mean he’s just going to give up and die. Ending a fight doesn’t always mean winning or losing.

_(He always has one more trick up his sleeve.)_

It’s experimental, but almost all of his jutsu started off experimental, and what better time to test it when it may very well be his last moments of life?

**_Doubutsurei no Jutsu_ **

—

**_(one)_ **

He wakes up and for a handful of seconds doesn’t remember a thing.

It’d almost be panic-inducing, except he’s Tobirama Senju and panicking has never been his preferred method of coping.

As it is, waking up gives him enough to deduce several things:

He’s still alive. Which means not only did his new jutsu not kill him but also, in his blacked out state, neither did the Cloud nin.

Given waking up requires unconsciousness to be woken up from, using this jutsu leaves him vulnerable for who knows how long which isn’t exactly ideal in the midst of battle.

He can probably improve this jutsu through practice and training in a more controlled environment, as in, not now while still potentially surrounded by twenty (thirteen, at this point, actually) enemy shinobi.

And that’s as far as he gets before the warrior part of him shoves aside the philosopher and reminds him that, hey, thirteen angry enemy shinobi are actually a lot more important than the results of his experimental jutsu. Which might actually not have done anything, anyway, since the chakra smoke clears and there’s no giant guardian spirit animal to protect him as planned. Also, his whole body hurts far more than the injuries inflicted on him would explain.

“What the fuck is this?” One of the shinobi says–one of the captains if Tobirama interpreted the team’s interactions correctly. Twenty members total, with four squads of five headed by their own captain.

A different captain, the one with the annoyingly accurate lightning techniques, asks, “Where the hell did that white-haired piece of shit go?”

Tobirama is starting to feel confused–something he hates with a passion–because he’s obviously right here and it’s not as if he’s invisible, but he figures discretion is the better part of valor. He stays silent (not that it’s much of a hardship).

“Spread out and find him!” roars Kinkaku himself who, unsurprisingly, is the ultimate leader of the Kinkaku Force–Cloud nin have no sense of subtlety whatsoever.

Three of the squads–or the remains of them, anyway–immediately split away to find him even though he is right here, what the hell is happening?

“And get rid of this damn cat of his,” Kinkaku adds to the remainder of his subordinates, and one of them moves toward him with a wickedly curved sword before Tobirama can even move his limbs which feel strained and achey and awkward and–

—

**_(two)_ **

He wakes up again and definitely remembers everything.

He’s still confused as fuck.


	2. Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> reposted from [Fanfiction, The Miscellaneous Archive](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11365374/chapters/25522788)

**_(two)_ **

He tries to stand up. Fails. Nearly falls on his face for the attempt.

Crawling it is, then.

It’s not exactly dignified, but he’s always been more practical than that. Plus, there’s no one around to see him–nobody within his sensing range, the Kinkaku Force included.

He makes his way towards the trees, an almost childish desire for protection even though he’s the last of his brothers, and tries hard not to think about how none of this makes any sense.

Unfortunately, he’s rather good at thinking and so his mind is a whirlwind of facts tearing away at each other.

He died. He knows he did. Can definitely remember the feel of metal cutting through his chest, his heart futilely beating away his lifeblood.

The Kinkaku Force was right there, they wouldn’t suffer him being alive after he killed seven of their members and they looked right at him. But they were specifically searching for him, he’s the only white-haired piece of shit they were fighting, and yet…

A cat, though. They thought he was a cat. Perhaps that’s some kind of code?

It’s only when his back is pressed up against a tree (so foolishly sentimental) that he feels brave enough to look down at the somehow killing-yet-not blow.

It’s not there.

What is there, though, is an awful lot of fur. And… paws. He tries to sit up properly, but his body, this his-yet-not body, doesn’t want to move that way.

He lets it twist in a way that feels more natural, examines the rest of it: white fur and grey spots and paws and a tail. It almost looks like one of his snow leopard summons except it’s small, the size of a cub, if that.

He’s a cat. An actual literal cat.

He takes it back, he’d prefer some dignity instead.

But brooding is only a step up from panicking, in his opinion, so he shuts it down soon enough. Cat or not, he’s alive and mobile and still loyal to his village–even if he did technically pass on the hat to Hiruzen such that he’s no longer Hokage–so he turns tail and heads towards Konoha.

Unfortunately, he’s a little unsteady on his feet (literally and metaphorically), the size of a house cat, and has a fur coat which doesn’t exactly blend into the brown and greens of a forest. Konoha is a long way off and it’s war time.

Tobirama Senju is known to have snow leopard summons.

This time, he doesn’t get a warning.

—

**_(three)_ **

He wakes up again. Still confused, but mostly coldly furious.

(And, maybe, a little scared and in shock, but he’s died twice now–would anyone blame him?)

It’s enough that the moisture in the air condenses, reflexively gathers around him in a protective mist. When he bares his teeth it liquifies further, three water bullets shooting off in the direction of his attackers.

They’re not expecting it, so it makes contact, and he follows the rush of instinct and rage that says take out the threat before they take him out first.

It’s nothing like the efficient and elegant taijutsu katas he’s developed over the years. It’s fangs and claws and his muscles straining, his heartbeat thundering, and for three minutes it’s just sheer violence and aggression unlike anything he’s ever felt before.

Three minutes is enough.

He tries not to gag at the taste of blood in his mouth, looks ashamedly away from the bodies. War is war, he’s always been a soldier, but this wasn’t… this isn’t him.

It’s him until he can undo it.

—

**_(four)_ **

He gets attacked twice more on the way home, but at least this time he only dies once.

It’s a messier and redder cat that finally makes it to Konoha.

Tobirama slinks into the village, simultaneously relieved and annoyed by how easy it turns out to be. He’ll have to increase security as soon as he changes back, but there’s a lot he needs to do that will have to wait until he changes back.

Getting cleaned up is not one of them. It’s one thing return home as a cat, it’s another to return home filthy. A quick swim should take care of the worst of it, because he’s still trying to get the taste of blood out of his mouth and he’d rather not add to it. And anyway, he’s a Suiton master.

In his own village, he doesn’t need to be on guard. Here, Tobirama Senju being known to have snow leopard summons is a good thing. The villagers stare at him, but there’s no hostility or malice. If anything, the seem excited to see him–his cat form, that is.

The Senju compound isn’t very large–the remains of his clan choosing to live in the village, proper–but he has a place there, too, which he uses more as a laboratory than a house. It’s home, though, familiar and soothing in it’s own way.

His chakra is still the same–the gates letting him through–but when he enters, he pauses.

Everyone is in black–they’re mourning him already.


	3. Part Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> part of the [Ask Box Advent Calendar](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11405592/chapters/25547247), prompted by to-someplace-else

**_(four)_ **

Tobirama is used to having eyes on him. His appearance, when he was younger, until he could rightly earn those looks because of his abilities. The Senju’s second strongest son.

And then, after Hashirama’s death, the strongest. The Hokage.

Yes, Tobirama is used to having people’s attention–negative more than positive–and while he might never handle it as well as Hashirama did, at least he could walk tall with his head held high.

Or, at least, he used to.

Now he slinks under everyone’s gaze, ashamed at being seen so. At the fuss everyone is making over him, over mistaken sorrow–an embarrassing tale for his students to hold over him later.

“Kitty!” a high voice calls out, before Tobirama is roughly grabbed, his legs pinned to his body, awkward, bordering on painful.

Still, he does not unsheathe his claws.

“Tsunade-chan, sweetheart, put him down,” Mito says–her voice he would recognize anywhere, thick with grief as it may be. Not as if it’s the first time, anyway.

Thankfully, Tobirama is let go–somewhat reluctantly dropped–and so he indulges his brother’s granddaughter the lingering pets.

To his surprise, Mito drops to her knees–ceremony and age be damned–and runs her own hand over his head. “Oh, Tobirama,” his best friend sighs, a familiar refrain.

For a moment, he thinks everything will be okay.

Then she starts to cry.

—

_(There is no changing back._

_As far as everyone knows, he is dead._

_That may as well be true.)_

—

He is free to come and go, the guards letting him through with fond if subdued smiles–never mind that he doesn’t need permission, chakra still keyed to the gates– but he doesn’t go far.

Tobirama walks the streets of Konoha, patrolling, protective, even if he can no longer be Hokage. This is still his brother’s village. His  village, too, and even in this cursed existence he will defend her to the death.

How lucky that it appears he can do so multiple times.

Outside the Senju compound, quiet and constant, everything is in flux.

They are at war still, of course, but more than that there is internal controversy. The people have lost their leader: while field promotions may hold for the ranks of soldiers, the council is reluctant to hand leadership over to a teenager.

On top of that, there is dissension in his team–damned politics muddling his straightforward decision with talks of candidacies and clan support.

Inside the Senju compound he is a reminder of a respected relative lost.

Outside, he is a critical pawn in his own succession.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Copped out of the whole "can't change back thing" but I figure since that is the premise anyway, going through how he tries and fails would be redundant when in fact we just want to see him deal with his new cat life so...


End file.
